


The Family Tree

by MaiKusakabe



Series: Meet Me Again [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Family, Family Reunions, Gen, M/M, Modern Amestris, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-22 00:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14296395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaiKusakabe/pseuds/MaiKusakabe
Summary: After the dust has settled, Ed and Roy go visit their niece, Trisha Elric.





	The Family Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, Meet Me Again was meant to be a 10k one shot. Due to lack of time, I couldn’t get that much written and I decided I’d continue it at a later date. Since then, the universe has grown a lot. In the original plan, this chapter was meant to be the last part of the one shot, but now it is the first chapter of its own story. Roy and Ed are there, of course, but this story focuses on Al’s descendants as well, mainly on his youngest and only surviving child: Trisha Elric. Not every character will be introduced in detail in this story, but they will be around throughout the series (have I mentioned it’s a long series?).
> 
> As for the story Meet Me Again itself, it has some upcoming updates, mainly covering the time between the original one shot and this chapter.

At age 83, one would expect Trisha Elric to either live with a relative or at least to have someone looking after her. More than enough people certainly hinted at it. She didn’t do either thing. She was very healthy for her age, and she refused to give in and have others do things for her as long as she could handle them herself. The kids certainly dropped by to check on her very often, but the only time a relative had lived here since Edward had moved out was when Winry attended university in Central. Winry had studied such an intensive program that Trisha had refused to let her fit into her schedule the part-time jobs the other children had worked to pay for rent. Trisha and Fu hadn’t minded looking after her, and Fu had made sure that Winry didn’t overwork herself into exhaustion. It was a bad habit Winry had inherited from her Elric genes.

Trisha had woken up early today to do some last minute clean up. She wasn’t expecting guests until noon at the very least (later, probably, because the kids always managed to forget something when they left home), and she’d been told she wasn’t supposed to cook. Not today. Today was her birthday, and everybody had promised to bring something to eat. Trisha had jokingly left a handful of leaflets for takeout orders on the coffee table in the living room, because some members of the family were less than stellar cooks.

It was barely past nine, Trisha was just done putting away the mug she’d used for breakfast, when the doorbell rang.

She sighed and took her apron off, yelling that she was coming. If it was one of the kids showing up early to help her despite her very clear instructions _not to_ , she was going to show them why disobeying her was a terrible idea. She grabbed the bracelet with the wood transmutation array on her way out, already planning how to use the door as a weapon.

Speaking of the door, she should probably transmute a peephole into it, because it was annoying to open the door without knowing who was on the other side. Edward had offered to install one of those camera-things with the screen for her, but she was too old to bother with the new technologies.

She opened the door, her face calm in case it was a neighbor or some innocent person, and froze.

Trisha didn’t know the men before her, she was _sure_ of it, and yet it was as though she was staring at two ghosts.

The shorter man —younger; shouldn’t he be older?— raised his hands slowly. The other —older, blond, the same golden eyes so common in her family— held up a square of wood. The shorter man clapped his hands, touched the wood and set off a transmutation.

Trisha stared, transfixed, at the wooden horse now in the blond man’s hand. She’d been obsessed with horses as a child, she’d collected wooden figures of them. She’d always received one for her birthday from— even as an adult, until…

_No array._

“Happy Birthday, Trisha,” the blond man, she refused to think of a name, said after what might very well have been years.

She looked up from the figure to look at them. From blond hair to dark hair, from golden eyes to dark, sharp eyes. It was wrong, the heights were wrong, the ages were wrong, it was _impossible_ …

“That alchemist two weeks ago opened the Gate.”

It wasn’t impossible.

 

* * *

 

 

Trisha’s hands remained steady as she lifted the tray from the counter. She’d faced lecture halls full of hopeful students and skeptical academics, she’d dealt with sleazy politicians, she’d fought tooth and nail to get to where she was now. She could do this.

Edward Elric and Roy Mustang were in her living room.

 _Uncle Ed and Uncle Roy were here_.

They had offered to help her, of course they had, but Trisha had waved them off. She didn’t let her grandkids help her, her uncles were no different. Her young, somehow reincarnated and very much alive uncles.

She took a deep breath to steady herself, turned in place and started walking.

Uncle Roy was sitting on the couch, but Uncle Ed was walking along the west wall, moving slowly from one picture to another.

“So you’re still into photography?” Uncle Ed asked, turning around to look at Trisha.

She smiled. She couldn’t help it. She wouldn’t be able to help it for a very long time.

“Of course I am. Those are Gracia and Maria in case you were interested,” she said, gesturing at the photograph level with Uncle Ed’s face. “Gracia is Ling’s daughter,” she added belatedly, realizing that neither of them had met her. “She married Maria last year. I have the album from the wedding in here.”

She gestured to the table, where she’d now set the tray after glaring at Uncle Roy for moving to help her. Uncle Roy raised both hands in a pacifying gesture that Trisha remembered meant he wasn’t sorry at all.

Uncle Ed ambled over to the table.

“How many…” He cleared his throat. “How many kids are there?” he asked awkwardly.

Uncle Roy leaned forward, elbows on his knees and interest clear on his face.

“I’ll show you,” Trisha said, and turned to the bookcase in the room. She had many picture albums, they filled nearly all the space, but there was one with all of her favorite pictures. She knelt, her bones protesting loudly the movement but she ignored them. Second shelf to the left.

 _Here_.

She pulled out an old, leather-bound album. It was large and one of Trisha’s most loved possessions. It held pictures of their family throughout the years. The oldest were the one in which Dad and Uncle Ed were little kids and appeared with their parents and the one Uncle Roy had taken with Maes Hughes when they’d graduated from the military academy, and the newest was one of the entire family at Gracia and Maria’s wedding last September.

She stood up and turned around, the album hugged to her chest. Somehow she was startled to see Uncles Ed and Roy sitting there. Part of her had expected them to be gone.

“Are you sure you want to use these?” Uncle Roy asked, and it took Trisha a moment to understand he meant the teapot and cups.

She shook her head in exasperation.

“I wouldn’t have brought them out if I wasn’t,” she said, intentionally archly. But, once again, she couldn’t help smiling. “They’re for special occasions. I can’t think of a more special occasion.” Uncle Ling had gifted that tea set to Mom and Dad for their wedding, along with a load of other things that had included what was now the family’s vacation house at Xing.

She finally sat down on the couch across from them.

“I made coffee instead of tea. You two are still addicted to that thing, aren’t you?”

Uncle Ed grinned.

“You betcha. I’m not human until my first cup.”

Uncle Roy snorted, then winced. The coffee table wasn’t large enough to block the sight of Uncle Ed kicking him.

“You got a problem, _brat_?” Uncle Ed demanded.

Uncle Roy grinned cheekily at him.

“First cup? More like thir— Trisha?” he asked, turning to her. He looked worried.

It took Trisha a moment to realize there were tears running down her face. She wiped at them with her fingers, chuckling.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s just… I’d missed the two of you.”

Her uncles exchanged a look, and then they were up and moving around the table to sit on either side of her. Trisha burrowed into them. They may be only kids in body, but they were _her uncles_ , and she’d missed them more than she could express.

“So,” Uncle Ed said, rubbing a hand over her back, “why don’t you tell us about all these kids you got pics of all over the walls?”

 

* * *

 

 

Uncle Ed and Uncle Roy couldn’t stay. It made sense, of course —Trisha would have to talk to everybody first, and choose her words carefully when she did— but it still hurt to walk them to the door.

It was easier to do because they had things to do today, otherwise she might have been tempted to ask them to stay anyway. But Uncle Roy had an exam —Trisha had laughed for a good five minutes when he’d said he was getting back into politics— and Uncle Ed had exams to mark that he’d been procrastinating on.

“Sara’s birthday is on Monday,” Trisha told them at the door. “We’ll be telling her about, well, you know.” And they did, because it had been Uncle Ed’s idea to start telling the children about the family history when they turned twelve. Most of it anyway. Trisha didn’t know how a philosopher’s stone was made, but she knew you had to kill people for it. What she had been made _very_ aware of was the consequences of human transmutation, and how it never, _ever_ worked. The tale of her father’s soul trapped in a suit of armor for five years still chilled her to the bones.

Sara turned twelve in three days, and following the family tradition, they would tell her after the party was over and all the guests gone.

“I want to wait until afterwards to talk to the family.”

“Sure. We don’t want to spoil the kid’s birthday,” Uncle Ed said easily. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that he offered to Trisha. “Here. My address and our numbers.”

Trisha accepted the paper with a smile.

“How does tomorrow sound? Or Sunday?” Uncle Ed asked. “This guy doesn’t need to study for his next exam, it’s History of Democracy.” Here he rolled his eyes very deliberately. “He’s got an exam pretty much about himself.”

“Tomorrow sounds wonderful. Lunch?” Trisha offered before Uncle Roy could answer.

As much as she loved to watch them bicker, Uncle Roy would be late for his exam at this rate.

**Author's Note:**

> So… Thoughts? I’m not very used to creating major OCs, I usually keep them to small, unimportant roles, so I’m kind of nervous here. I tried to show Trisha as more than a one-dimensional character. What do you think?
> 
> On a side-note, Roy stayed very close to Gracia and Elicia Hughes after the Promised Day, to the point that, to Al’s children, Gracia was like an aunt and Elicia was like an older cousin. I’m mentioning it because you may have noticed a certain name in here :)


End file.
